inverted cones, wind devils playing in spirals across the sand.
Tablelands, mesas, wide plains, desolate lava stretches. Each in turn was
traversed by these lean, grim, bronzed riders.

They reached the foothills and left behind the desert shimmering in the
dancing heat. In a deep gorge, where the hill creases gave them shade,
the punchers threw off the trail, unsaddled, hobbled their horses, and
stole a few hours' sleep.

In the late afternoon they rode back to the trail through a draw, the
ponies wading fetlock deep in yellow, red, blue, and purple flowers. The
mountains across the valley looked in the dry heat as though made of
_papier-mâché_. Closer at hand the undulations of sand hills stretched
toward the pass for which they were making.

A mule deer started out of a dry wash and fled into the sunset light. The
long, stratified faces of rock escarpments caught the glow of the sliding
sun and became battlemented towers of ancient story.

The riders climbed steadily now, no longer engulfed in the ground swell
of land waves. They breathed an air like wine, strong, pure, bracing.
Presently their way led them into a hill pocket, which ran into a gorge
of piñons stretching toward Gunsight Pass.

The stars were out again when they looked down from the other side of the
pass upon the lights of Malapi.